TCXPO (Trading Card Expo) 2025

Trading cards? What's that got to do with pinball? Well, not much. However, I like to take any opportunity I can to spread the joy of pinball around. So whenever a pinball or pop culture-related expo comes around, I like to offer my services as a "Pinball Advocate" and bring some machines for the public to experience for the first time, or enjoy for the thousandth time, whatever the case may be. TCXPO is the latest venture of Amy from Collector Con, who organises several pop culture events throughout the year. It was on for the first time on Sunday, and it's awesome to be a part of an inaugural show!

As for the machines we decided to bring to the show, we have had good success with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Data East, 1991) and Super Mario Bros (Gottlieb, 1992) as general crowd-pleasers for these types of events. But we could fit three into the car, so what else should we bring? I looked around my storage area and saw a forlorn Eye of the Tiger (Gottlieb, 1978) in the corner. I had repaired and serviced Eye of the Tiger many years ago, but it had not been played much since then, or taken to any events. Time for that to change! I pulled it out of the corner of the garage, dusted it off, and played a few test games. I was fully expecting it to have issues resetting, or for one of the stepper units to start having issues. But this wasn't the case, and the game played perfectly! Just like I remembered it. Finally, the time had come to break it in for its first public event. We were right near the entrance of the show which meant that all of the patrons entering the expo would see the pinball machines and would (hopefully) have a go!
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Floorplan for the event. We are at bottom left.

I've been to Oran Park many times but never to the leisure centre. It's a fantastic complex, with a swimming pool, gym, ball courts, and other facilities which I didn't even get to fully explore. A great place for an expo! We set up the games the night before so they were ready to go on the day of the show. A few test games showed no issues, so we got in the next morning, turned the games on and waited for the crowds to arrive.
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Games set up and ready to go for the show!

Since this was mainly a show for card collectors, there wasn't the same amount of enthusiasm for the machines as we were familiar with at Collector Con, Oz Comic Con, or Pinfest. Still, the games were being played around 75% of the time the doors were open, so there were plenty of people interested enough in them to make it worthwhile.
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Show patrons playing the games.

...and more patrons playing games!

We had some awesome conversations with some of the show attendees, too. One of them tried to buy our Super Mario Bros, but unfortunately it isn't going anywhere anytime soon! He and his sons were big fans of about Nintendo, including Mario, so if anyone out there has a Super Mario Bros for sale, let me know and I can connect you with our friend!

Of course, we also ran a competition on one of the machines. This time it was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. There was a lot of repeat play on this game from several people as they tried to take the top spot. The comp ended up being won by a great guy whose connection to pinball was that his parents owned a bowling alley. He would spend a lot of his time there, playing the arcade games they had sited there including pinball. So, he was a natural!
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Overall view of one of the rows of vendor tables and our pinball machines.

The only issue on any of the machines were a couple of stuck balls on Eye of the Tiger. The inserts are a little cupped and worn, so sometimes the balls hangs up on them if it is travelling too slowly. In all cases, the ball was stuck on the left outlane insert which is a little sunken. I've got a playfield protector which I haven't installed yet, which will fix this issue right up. I forgot to take a look at game ball counts before and after the event, so no detailed statistics or audits to report this time; sorry!
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More people, young and old, having fun on the machines.

Overall it was great to see people, both young and old, playing the machines and having a good time. As always seeing a family of four or five play a single machine against one another, or seeing a young brother and sister teaching each other how to play, are great moments. I like to think we created some good memories for people at the show and we will definitely be back for the next one!

Speaking of the next one, keep an eye out for another blog post in the coming week. We may have been crazy (read: stupid) enough to do another expo next weekend, so the next Event Report is not far away...​